


The Hand

by BeastOfTheSea



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Child Abuse, Dark Character, Dark!Harry, Disturbing Themes, Half-Mad!Harry, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Work In Progress, powerful!Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:19:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeastOfTheSea/pseuds/BeastOfTheSea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It destroyed him, what they did. He was never right again.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hand

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I am not J.K. Rowling, and I do not own Harry Potter.  
>  **Warnings** : If I’m competent, **disturbing content**. See Trigger Warnings for additional information, but be warned that they contain spoilers. (Click the "See the end of the work for more notes" link to access the trigger warnings.)  
>  As a general note, this fic will build up to the Dark!Powerful!Harry. Come back at around Chapter 4 or so for that - the first few chapters will be... pretty dismal, content-wise. I'm exploiting solidly canon (!) material to get Dark!Powerful!Harry, but it isn't very _nice_ canon material...

> _The child without a name grew up to be the hand_
> 
> _To watch you, to shield you, or kill on demand_
> 
> \- “Hand of Sorrow” by Within Temptation

* * *

The wards notified Kreacher that someone was at the door.

Kreacher’s hands clenched into fists – had he not told everyone who had come by for the last several years that his Mistress Black did not want to see them, that she was in mourning for the loss of her precious boys? – but, since his Mistress was in one of her moods so horrid and deep in despair that she refused even to move, he roused himself and trotted towards the door. As he came to stand right beside it, he heard faint, feeble knocks against the very bottom; frowning, he glanced downwards, wondering what in the world it might be, but reached up and swung open the door anyway–

The flesh of what lay on the doorstep alternated between thick, shiny maroon growths and red, raw meat, an off-white patch of leathery hide straggling over the wounds and deformities here and there; the – the _thing_ raised its malformed head with an obvious effort, whining and straining against the tightened tendons that stood out from its neck like wires, and drooled mindlessly at him, its mouth sagging open in a lopsided gape. Had he listened to his every instinct, had it not been for _one little thing_ , he would have slammed the door and sealed it shut as best he could, then sprinted upstairs and hidden in a nice, dark closet, pausing only long enough to seize any boggart that had decided to claim the closet first and throw it out –

And that one little thing was that the abomination splayed across his Mistress Black’s doorstep was a human child.

One mangled, tiny hand, still upraised to make one more knock against the door, twitched, then fell limply to the ground; the other pawed for the doormat and, obtaining a weak purchase upon it, began wrenching at it, obviously trying to pull itself forward. The child-thing itself, still staring up at Kreacher, let out a long, strained breath that sounded like it was about to be sick, then heaved in another breath and gasped out a horrible, strangled sound that sounded almost like a hiss.

Perhaps this was not a child, but rather a failed magical creation of some other Dark family that had confused his Mistress’s home for the place of its birth? Kreacher felt hope for a moment – But no, he could not blind himself to the human shape and childish proportions beneath the ruined flesh, he could not. And he cursed himself for it.

Curling his ears tightly and swallowing hard, he asked, struck by a sudden fear that perhaps this was the child of some friend of the Blacks, “Who are you?”

It blinked at him, then contorted its face hideously, seeming to be exerting every last scrap of willpower and intelligence it had left to understand the question; its head dropped to its chest and limbs twisted in on themselves before it managed to at last answer in a garbled, ruined whisper, “Uh.. ’unno. I… Freak.” Its voice strengthened. “Yeh, yeh – Freaks don’ d’ _serve_ names.” It began to inhale, then burst into a fit of wracking coughs.

Perhaps it was an experiment after all? Or a Squib? Kreacher knew good families, such as the Blacks, merely put such things out of their misery, but perhaps blood-traitors did not treat them well – But no, the anti-Muggle wards would have repulsed any Squibs before they could so much as enter the property, and this child lay on the very doorstep. Kreacher squinted at it (and wished he hadn’t), but he could not determine what more it was, nor any reason why it might have come to his Mistress’s home. “Why has the freak come here?”

The child spat out pinkish saliva (only onto his Mistress’s doorstep, fortunately, not inside the house) and took a few strained, gargling breaths; at last, it raised its head and looked upwards, its bloodshot eyes tracking something across the ceiling that, when Kreacher turned around and stared upwards, he could not see. “’Etty ligh’s… Safe.”

“Safe?” Kreacher asked, turning back to the child.

“Yeh… Safe.” Its voice dropped off as its head slumped down again, apparently becoming exhausted from the effort it had taken it to speak. “The ligh’s… ma’ it safe…”

“What lights?”

“Ebberywhere… Walls… ceilin’… floor…” It broke into another fit of coughing, and took several more seconds to speak again. “Ex… exteh… goin’ all the way down t’ the stree’… ‘etty… ver ‘etty house…” Jerkily, its hand reached up and scrabbled nonsense patterns across the black wood of the door.

Kreacher frowned, then peered around, raised his ears, and examined the patterns it drew more closely. A moment of intense concentration later, he had brought the house wards into focus.

Yes, allowing for the child’s obvious difficulty with movement and the uncontrollable tremor in its limbs, its hand moved along the lines of the wards almost perfectly.

“You can see them?”

The child jerked its head up and down like a puppet wielded by a palsied invalid, which Kreacher assumed meant _Yes_. “ _Ver’_ ‘ett-” it began with great vigor, then – if the sounds it made were any indication – began to hack up both its lungs.

It could see the wards? What _was_ it? House-Elves and some other magical creatures could, yes, but not wizards and witches, not unless they had been trained to do so. Surely this child had not been trained – it was too young to learn complex magic, even had it been well – yet it could…

Kreacher glanced at the ceiling again, this time thinking of his Mistress upstairs, slumped over in her armchair, too far gone even to weep… Then he looked back down at the child, curled up just outside his Mistress’s door, almost too far gone to breathe.

The… thing did indeed appear hideous, but the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black had been Dark at its foundation and remained firmly so ever since; surely the Blacks had seen worse. Whatever it was – failed experiment or not – it could do a thing normal witches and wizards could not, and who knew how many more such things it could do? He gave it a long, intent look – not a very pleasant sight, no, it was not – then glanced upwards again.

His Mistress Black’s condition continued to worsen, especially during the times when she refused to eat, going so far as to forbid the House-Elves – of which he was now the only one left living – to prepare even a crumb… If this went on for too much longer, she would… No, no, he _could not_ think of that, he could not! A lesser witch would surely have perished by now, he allowed himself to admit, but not his Mistress Black; even in her grief, she endured. But even the strongest…

Kreacher had known for some time that she needed to be distracted from her loss, but Kreacher did not know how. For a while, she had distracted herself with her terrible rages, and House-Elf after House-Elf’s head had joined the collection on the wall… But now, only Kreacher remained, and he had taken care to survive; he would be of no good to his Mistress dead. And the rages had only kept her from her grief for a time; once they had passed, the grief had consumed her utterly once more. She needed a better distraction, one that would keep her from her grief for good… If only she would let Miss Cissy into the house, or at least visit her from time to time – but no, she had refused to see her, screaming that she could not bear to see Miss Cissy, happy and content with her beautiful little boy, when her own boys had gone…

Now this child came to his Mistress’s door, small and fragile and wounded, unwanted and abandoned and struggling for breath, and yet more than an ordinary wizard or witch in this one thing… Perhaps – it was absurd, but he had to hope, he _must_ still have hope – his Mistress would wonder what it might be and take an interest in it, taking an interest in life itself again in the process; perhaps, even, she would find a way to make it of use, and thus better the House of Black. At the very least, Kreacher thought, looking back at the malformed, shuddering ruin of a child, it would provide a brief distraction, and, if it was beyond all help, his Mistress would heft her axe high and bring it whistling down…

A mercy, in its state. Certainly, if he kicked its hand away and slammed the door upon it, pretending he had seen nothing, the child would likely not live out the night; as for his Mistress, if he did not find some way to rouse her from her grief, she –

Kreacher shook his head, his ears flapping wildly. A foolish, silly idea, yes, but it was all he had, and he was obligated to do all he could for his Masters and Mistresses, was he not? If it failed – what had he to lose? Yes, he risked one of his Mistress’s fatal rages, but Kreacher had not survived beyond all his fellows by going meekly to the axe, no he had not. He could evade, he could reason, he could flee out of earshot before she could directly command him to his death… and if Kreacher could not save his Mistress, if Kreacher had to watch her succumb to the grievous despair that had sapped away her life for the past several years, unable to do more than curse that wretched, lawless boy for breaking his Mistress’s heart and mourn Master Regulus beside her… Kreacher deserved death, for he had failed the family, and any elf who failed in its duties did not deserve to live.

With a jerk of his head, he hefted the child into the air; it yelped and flailed, Kreacher getting a good view of its front in the process – no less hideous than the back, and, if anything, worse from having been scraped over stone. No one had left it here, then – it had obviously crawled all the way. _He_ had crawled all the way, that was – Kreacher corrected “child” to “boy” in his mind, then averted his eyes and, once he had managed to control his stomach, turned around and marched off, towing the child – boy – _thing_ along behind him and slamming the door shut once the boy had cleared the entranceway.

“ _Woooow_ ,” it – _he_ commented, wriggling in Kreacher’s magical grip and likely gawping at the house all around him (Kreacher did not check – Kreacher was not about to look at him more than necessary).

“Kreacher is glad the boy has good taste,” Kreacher mumbled, walking down the entrance hallway with trepidation. Already, he thought this a stupid idea, but he could not think of anything better; he had only this idea, and surely, when such a strange thing happened, he ought to take advantage of it, ought he not? It could hardly make matters worse – there was no way to make matters worse …

* * *

“Mistress Black,” Kreacher began, sweeping a deep bow. His Mistress, staring dully out into nothingness, did not respond; an idiot, such as the blood-traitor who did not deserve the name of Black, might have said that her eyes were as vacant as those of the child, but that would be an idiot’s gibbering. Where the boy’s face (what of it could be made out through its injuries) implied a mind as wrecked as its body, anyone who beheld his Mistress’s prematurely aged visage would perceive, after surely not too long a time, a bleak, never-ending despair. And if someone such as the blood-traitor would jeer that, in effect, it made little difference – Kreacher’s fingers twitched, and he had to resist the urge to hurl himself forward to beat himself with the poker at the mere _thought_ of his reply.

Bringing his mind back to the task at hand, Kreacher continued, “Kreacher has found this thing on the doorstep, and is wanting to know his Mistress’s opinion upon it.” He gestured to the boy, who was obliviously looking around and murmuring variations on “very pretty” from time to time, and awaited his Mistress’s response, his stomach churning.

For several seconds, his Mistress seemed not to have heard; then, moving as though great weights had been tied to every part of her, she sluggishly raised her head and, her face totally devoid of interest, turned to the boy. Several more seconds passed as she gazed at the hideous sight, apparently unseeing, and Kreacher began to worry that she was even further gone than he had known – but over the next few seconds, her expression changed from dull confusion to incredulity to raw disgust. “What _is_ that thing?” she demanded, staring at it indignantly, as if its mere _existence_ offended her.

“Kreacher does not know, Mistress. The thing calls itself Freak, and –”

“Did I say I cared?” his Mistress bellowed, sitting up straight; Kreacher, recognizing a full-fledged fury beginning, backed away. He did not even think of pointing out that she had said so, for Flopsy had been beheaded for just such a thing, and rightly so, for backtalking his Mistress. “Do you think I want to bother myself with such a horrid – _thing_ , when my boy, my good boy, my Regulus, is gone, and I have not even his body to bury, and my other – my precious Sirius – tells me he would rather – that he would rather rot in Azkaban with the Dementors than –” Her voice broke on a sob, after choking through the words up to that point, and Kreacher cowered, stabbed in the heart by his Mistress’s pain; it would have been even worse for him had it not been a familiar litany, by that point – but, for his Mistress, one whose torture never seemed to fade through repetition. “ _Do you think I care?_ ” she screamed.

Kreacher forced himself not to shake his head, knowing that to react would be to invite her attention, turning her impotent, agonized shrieking to well-honed sadism, whereas, if he stayed mute and unresponsive, she would behave as though he was little more than furniture, decoration for the room as she raged and avenged her suffering upon any stray object that happened to incur her wrath before she completely exhausted herself. He had, in fact, seen her hurling vitriol at furniture during particularly bad fits… but he tried not to think about those very much.

Indeed, that was just what happened; though she stared at him with wild-eyed fury, she soon lost interest in him, and instead turned to the boy, who had gone very, very still when she began shouting. “As for _you_ , you disgusting, _loathsome_ thing,” she began, “who has _dared_ to pollute the house of my fathers, you will regret _ever_ setting foot in the home of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black – you, _Freak_ , have made the first and last mistake _you will ever make concerning my_ –”

A flare of raw magic snapped Kreacher’s hold on the boy, who crashed to the ground, raising a shaking hand in the vague direction of Kreacher’s Mistress Black, and, before Kreacher could so much as react, golden flame erupted from the boy’s hand, as though it had been a wand – missing the ducking Mistress Black herself by a good margin, fortunately, but searing through the top of her armchair and leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. As Kreacher, terrified and enraged, turned on the boy to send him flying across the room, the boy did it for him, scurrying in impossible, wrongly-angled movements to a crouch and bolting in a single leap from there to the corner of the room; he smashed into the wall with a _wham_ , but – not even stunned – curling into a ball and began to scream like the dying.

“NO, NO, NO, PLEASE, _DON’T,_ DON’T, I’LL BE GOOD-”

Kreacher, stunned, stared at the boy, then at his Mistress Black, who was still half-hunched-over, looking over her shoulder at the burned stuffing and empty air where the top of her armchair had been only a few seconds before, then at the boy on the other side of the room, and then back again, her eyes as round as Galleons.

“-I’M SORRY, I’M SO SORRY, I’LL BE GOOD, I WON’T BE A FREAK, JUST DON’T –”

“ _Silencio_ ,” his Mistress said clearly, her voice cutting through the mindless screeching from the child in the corner, and the noise – mercifully – cut off. The boy seemed not even to notice, save that he replaced screaming with beating his head and fists against the wall. To the sound of the muffled bangs, Kreacher looked back at his Mistress Black, who had risen from her armchair and now stood, wand in hand, staring at the boy; as Kreacher watched, she took a few unsteady steps towards him, then looked down, her expression shaken.

And, despite himself, a small part of Kreacher’s heart sang, for she looked, though dazed, closer to reality and to the world than she had in years; at this moment, her confusion seemed like, rather than that of one who had abandoned the world and could not and would not return, that of one who was waking from a long dream. “What _is_ that thing?” she asked, looking up and staring again at the boy in undisguised horror.

“Kreacher does not know, Mistress Black.” Kreacher shook his head, glancing back at his Mistress’s armchair and the black smoke rising in coils from its top. “Kreacher truly does not know.”

* * *

Walburga stared for a long time at the thing in the corner, her fingers clutching her wand in a white-knuckled grip; her eyes took in every detail of its deformities as she walked closer, her mind both refusing to believe her eyes and refusing to turn away, though her every instinct recoiled from the sight. The discolored, warped flesh, its tendons standing out rigidly from the skin –

Burns. Yes, those were burns. A family friend had fought alongside Grindelwald during his rise, and, in the course of one savage battle, stumbled into a lick of Fiendfyre – and forever afterwards, his entire right forearm had been rendered a mass of unnatural, twisted maroon flesh, even the slightest alteration to the scar beyond the reach of any magic. Much like the entire body of this – thing.

As she stared down at the malformed creature thrashing on the floor before her, completely out of its wits, her muscles began to lock and her mind went numb. If this – thing’s – deformities were nothing more than injuries, no matter how severe, then its stunted, bone-thin form was not the natural shape of an unnatural beast, but rather the frail frame of a starved –

“ _Kreacher!_ ”

“Yes, Mistress?”

“I –” Her throat closed up as her heart thudded in her chest, her mind thumping equally furiously and rapidly; realizations and possibilities began to expand within it, her brain more active than it had been for weeks – _Months? Years? Don’t talk nonsense –_

Mad as this – this thing was, it should have thrown itself about much more vigorously… but it seemed barely able to break even its own fragile skin. It had managed to attack, leap away, and scream, but now…

Had that been a mere last hurrah? It should have been dead – she knew that much from its injuries, both old and recent, and from how little reserve it had left. It should have been shut in a sealed casket and buried hastily at midnight long before this hour; the miracle – or atrocity – was that it had lived until now. _How had it?_ It did not look tended-to – not in the slightest – and surely it could not have survived on its own. Surely?

Yet somehow… with the power it had briefly displayed…

She made a sudden and final decision. She wanted it _alive_ , she wanted to see what it was, and she wanted – if that failed – the freedom to bury it in the backyard and never speak of it to any wizard or witch again. A – decency, in its state. You did not speak of Squibs and you did not speak of eccentric relatives that, in their final days, had taken the last steps into insanity; you told others of Potions accidents and tragic mishaps on family trips to large bodies of water or tall cliffs, never of struggling children pinned to bottoms of filled bathtubs or beloved uncles who had chased their nephews through family mansions with carving-knives, shouting that they needed one final ingredient for the perfect potion. Not that any Squib had ever tainted _her_ line, or crippling insanity befallen her relatives, but – she knew the principle.

The blood-traitors and Mudbloods infesting St. Mungo’s wouldn’t understand that, of course, insisting on throwing it into the Sealed Ward (most likely) and prodding and poking at it, inviting every Mediwitch, Mediwizard, and meddling reporter in England to march through and take a look at it, and – She would not do that to it! Let none know of it, if it did not survive; let its existence end in ignorance and peace.

Not that she planned on letting it. Blocking out choking gasps and pitiful wheezes from the vicinity of the floor, she turned on her heel and roared at Kreacher, “Fetch Nutrient Potions, Burn-Healing Salves, Blood-Replenishing Potions, Essence of Dittany and – soap, too, its blood is making a mess on – _Oh, bring the entire medicine cabinet, you worthless lump!_ ”

Terror flashed across the House-Elf’s face, and with a _crack_ , he vanished; impatiently, she whirled back to the thing on the floor and, forcing herself not to flinch, crouched down by it. Unaware of her presence, it continued thrashing; its blood, as she had noted, was leaking from its damaged hands, the skin ripped open where it had smacked them against the wall. The eyes, when they briefly flickered open, were a bloodshot, vivid green, jerking and swiveling about wildly without apparent care for where they looked or what they saw. She picked one arm up between thumb and forefinger, only to have its owner wrench it away in a surge of weak desperation and start banging it against the floor again. Not a seizure, then. Were it sane, she would say it was throwing a tantrum; as it clearly wasn’t, she now understood why some of the rooms in the Sealed Ward had padded walls.

How such a frail, pitiful body could contain any magic at all, she could hardly understand; it seemed the very antithesis of strength, yet it had conjured that fire earlier with nary a wand nor any sort of magical focus, and even now, when it should have been unable to move from the severity of its injuries – the family friend had all but lost the use of his right arm – it could still spare the energy to thrash…

A _crack_ – accompanied by an inexplicable _thunk_ – announced Kreacher’s return, and Walburga glanced over her shoulder, ready to bark out orders–

Oh. That explained the _thunk_.

“As you requested, Mistress,” Kreacher said, giving a deep bow, as he stood beside the medicine cabinet, whole and entire. Walburga stared blankly at it – Was there _anything_ more literal than a House-Elf? – and then shook her head and began summoning the potions she needed from it, and a few more besides. Those she decided she didn’t need, she sent hurtling away – Kreacher, she noticed, froze them in midair and replaced them carefully – while those she did need, she kept beside her. Once she had acquired a sufficient stack, she looked down at the – thing, and set about her task.

Oh, she ought to have cast a Shield Charm, shouldn’t she? She corrected that after a moment, then scowled as she puzzled over how to pour things down the bo- _thing_ ’s throat with a barrier between her and it. It only took her a moment – yes, she was a witch, what was she bothering about – and then, shrugging impatiently, she proceeded to do it.

The first Nutrient Potion got knocked out of the air when the thing, now flipped onto its back, reacted violently to liquid going down its throat and slammed its head into the flask in its ensuing fit of flailing; she bit back the urge to shake it by the shoulders – would likely as not snap its neck, in its current state – and uncorked the next one, hovering it over to the thing and pouring _that_ one down its throat instead… making sure to keep the bottle out of its range, this time. Most of it managed to go down, this time; that would prevent death by starvation… for a few hours, at least. Some of the ingredients guaranteed rapid absorption. One was supposed to be able to pour one of those down the throat of someone minutes away from expiring from hunger and have it hold them until one could get them to sanctuary and treatment… and the thing was not _that_ close to death. Perhaps… an hour or two, at worst. A full day, if it held on tightly.

Then came the question of what else to do to it – And taking it off to St. Mungo’s and letting trained Mediwitches decide what to do with it became briefly tempting, though she shut that away after a moment. She herself, trained not a bit in medical magic, had only her imagination to provide the details of what was wrong with it beyond the bloody obvious – and, after a few seconds of images beyond the realms of physical possibility, she shut away her imagination as well. Pity Burn-Healing Salves weren’t meant for ingestion, or she’d pour some down its throat just in case.

She settled on the Blood-Replenishing Potion next – _perhaps_ it had lost blood and perhaps it hadn’t, but the worst thing a Blood-Replenishing Potion could do to someone who didn’t need it was cause high blood pressure and bad nosebleeds. Provided there was no internal bleeding, of course, but, after eying the thing, rocking on its back like a shell-less, malformed tortoise, she decided the potion would be worth the risk. Essence of Dittany followed, slathered on what wounds she could tell apart from mangled flesh. (And some of the mangled flesh, too – she considered applying a Full-Body Bind to stop its thrashing, then decided against it. The last thing she needed, if it was throwing the closest thing it could to a tantrum, was it deciding to hold its breath.) Two entire bottles of Burn-Healing Salve got thrown on, with Walburga rationalizing that, really, there was no such thing as excess when the entire thing’s body _was_ a burn scar.

And so it went for several more potions, tonics, and salves, until she’d given it enough to likely treat a classroom full of Hogwarts students… assuming the students had sustained only reasonable injuries beforehand. And by “reasonable”, of course, she meant “non-fatal”.

That done, she stood up, kicking an empty bottle aside, and motioned impatiently to Kreacher. “Take it upstairs,” she said. “I’ll find somewhere to put it.”

* * *

“Somewhere” turned out to be one of the guest bedrooms, after she commanded Kreacher to empty it of all its contents. A hideous (and thus expendable) couch had been sacrificed for the cause, and the – the thing now lay atop it, taking ragged, gurgling breaths. It seemed to be doing better. That was tantamount to saying “it no longer moved, but it still breathed”.

Walburga exhaled deeply and turned to Kreacher. “Tell me,” she said quietly, so as not to disturb the thing’s rest. “That – _was_ a human child, was it not?”

No response came for several seconds. “Kreacher does not know, Mistress,” the House-Elf said at last.

“I said that it _was_ one, not that it still _is_ one, you fool!” (She shoved the question of what it now _was_ aside for later.) Almost against her will, she added in a somber voice, “And a Wizarding child, at that.”

There was a long silence. “Tell me, Kreacher,” she said quietly, hands clasped behind her back, “who did this to it – to him?”

“Kreacher does not know, Mistress. The freak’s words were strange and slurred, and he was broken in his mind.”

She could feel the old bloodlust and rage building behind her temples, and her hands twitched around each other, itching to wield a weapon; with an effort, she restrained the urges and wrenched her focus around to her next task, channeling her wrath towards a _productive_ end – or as productive as she would get until she could drag the names of the filthy swine out of this boy. For some swine _had_ done this to him, of that she had no doubt – no child could have damaged himself this badly on his own…

…And, come to think of it, no child would have taught himself that he was nothing but a “freak” undeserving of a name.

But – for the moment – interrogating the boy was beyond her power; all that was left was for her to… take up a temporary career in Mediwitchcraft?

She began to gave a few harsh chuckles, despite herself, then left the room, shutting the door behind her, and burst into laughter like a madw– like a wild creature’s, free of all restraint, civilization, and reason. Kreacher, beside her, made a small sound of alarm, but she ignored him; this span of less than an hour had brought more unexpected events than the span of years before it, and the sheer _absurdity_ of her new role was enough to drive anyone to laughter. Surely, surely!

Well, well… No fool ever possessed foolishness enough to accuse the members of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black of leading predictable lives!

* * *

He had chased out more doxies, boggarts, and spiders than ought to have inhabited the entire neighborhood, and he was nearly collapsed from his efforts, but he did not mind, he did not mind at all; his Mistress was returned to herself, and that was beyond any price.

Now, he was not sure his Mistress was _recovered_ , so he did not let himself rejoice just yet; wild, harried moods might ride a Black for months on end, driving him or her ever onwards without a moment of peace, and then leave the Black collapsed in an exhaustion so deep it was all but death. After Master Regulus’s – loss, Master Orion had been overcome by such a frenzy, pouring all his energy into reinforcing the protections already upon the house tenfold and piling on whatever new ones struck his fancy – and had come to an untimely end when, in the strangeness of his mind, he had insisted upon checking whether one of the newest additions worked as it should. (It had. Very much so, and left a most nasty mess on the walls, too.)

Regardless, she had found something to distract her from her stupor, and that was what he had hoped. She had retrieved books on medical magic amongst the Black family’s collections (and promptly tossed one at the wall, declaring that it told her nothing more than that the boy should have been dead fifteen ways already) and begun to study the charms and spells within. Indeed, she had done nothing else as she paced from room to room, muttering to herself and occasionally saying aloud something like “But then, _how…_ ” or “I suppose that does make sense, in a way” or “What is he doing still alive, then?” She had gone so far as to cast a few spells on the boy, although nothing more than diagnostic charms, as far as Kreacher knew. (She had mocked one of the results at length, simpering “Burns over nearly a hundred percent of his body? Why, next you’ll tell me a Mudblood’s become Minister!”, “In critical condition? Why, the boy looks just as healthy as a half-rotted Inferius! You must surely jest!”, and the like.)

The boy had not woken, but had not worsened; as salve continued to be slathered on him and potions to be fed to him, he seemed, if anything, to be improving. He looked… better, though Kreacher thought that he would have to lose a limb or an eye to look worse. Despite coughing fits, he continued to breathe steadily and deeply; his pulse rate and temperature, however, remained high. The Mistress Black did not want to administer sedatives to him to slow his pulse, suspecting that any strong potions might send him into a final sleep, and anti-fever tonics had no effect… though, considering how long it had been since Master Regulus and the blood-traitor had been boys and Mistress Black had needed to purchase anti-fever tonics, the potions might have gone bad, but Kreacher did not dare suggest this.

Possibly, his Mistress Black said, the boy would stay unconscious until he had healed sufficiently from his injuries; she spoke of healers having found it useful to render those under their care comatose while the patients healed from great illnesses or wounds – _provided_ that the healers could wake them from their slumber afterwards, of course – and of possible witches and wizards in legend who had recovered from seeming death to resume making nuisances of themselves (and terrify their would-be mourners). Apparently some Light Lord important to Christians had done this, though Kreacher hadn’t quite caught his name – Kreacher didn’t know very much about Christians, save that Muggle Christians had tormented witches and wizards most terribly centuries ago and they worshipped crosses, but he never would have guessed that they went so far as to nail _themselves_ to crosses. A strange lot, but it was not nice to say that when one might be listening.

As for the boy, Kreacher did not know whether or not he was in such a sleep, but Kreacher thought he would be much happier when the boy could get out of bed and to the bathroom. Kreacher was always delighted to serve, but some forms of… service were less delightful than others. It was fortunate indeed that his Mistress Black cared very little for that couch.

But, ignoring the boy, his Mistress Black was doing splendidly: she had even ordered him to start cleaning the house, something that had been forbidden to the House-Elves for years. It was no easy task, because the house was so very large, and Kreacher had already chased out more doxies, boggarts, and spiders than ought to have occupied a whole neighborhood, but he was overjoyed to be allowed to properly serve his Mistress. Nearly falling over from exhaustion, yes, because his Mistress had not told him that he could take a break, but overjoyed.

All was, for the moment, well.

* * *

Walburga, woozy and fogged of mind, caught herself on the doorframe as she nearly stumbled over her own feet, and had to stay there to catch her breath. Almost against her will, she admitted that the well of restless energy within her had dried up, and soon she would have no choice but to impose the cold sanity of Occlumency… unless she wanted to find herself as immobile as the boy once more.

But she had not used Occlumency for… she had no idea how long… and she could barely remember how to go about using it in the first place. Surely, her mind pleaded as the room around her seemed to teeter and swerve, she just needed to lie down for a moment… shut her eyes for only a little while. She would feel better when she awoke. Yes, only a little rest…

That she felt any need for rest damned her to knowing she was out of time; that she could realize anything was out of the ordinary had been the warning she should have heeded. Four days ago, when she had settled the boy on that hideous couch, she had been frantic with agitated energy, tossing aside her long stupor like a tattered old cloak and hurling herself at the task of treating the boy, running all about the house like a witch of twenty and studying like a frantic schoolgirl days before the N.E.W.T.s… but the exhaustion she should have felt during those days all came due now.

It had not helped when she had caught sight of herself in a bathroom mirror and found an old crone of ninety – at _least!_ – staring back at her; yes, of course, it must have been because her despair had unconsciously influenced her magic, causing it to warp her outward appearance to match her inner grief and despair… Had it been her natural appearance, the roots of grey hairs would not be turning black once more, and the deep, dreadful wrinkles would not be softening and smoothing out. But the shock had done her mood no good.

Focus… Yes, she had to focus. Better the strain and numbness of Occlumency than a return to that armchair, alive only because she had not the energy to bring her wand’s tip to her temple or a sacrificial knife’s edge to her throat…

How did one perform Occlumency again? Take deep breaths, focus, then bear all one’s mind and magic down on suppressing the undesired emotions and constructing the desired emotions in their place, until not even the greatest Legilimens could discern the difference between the truth and the lie, because the mind _itself_ did not know… Breathe deeply… focus… _focus_ …

She had been trained from the beginning of puberty, as had all Purebloods from families that possessed the gift, to discipline her mind and arrange it in an orderly manner, no matter what the instability inside it or the turmoil taking place around it. That, in and of itself, was never the great difficulty. It took effort, yes – but so did any potent magic, so did forcing oneself out of bed after a night of fitful and miserable sleep, so did controlling one's natural urge to blast a hole in a blood-traitor's smirking face, even when that blood-traitor was one's cousin's child – less of an urge, less of an effort, if the blood-traitor was one's own… but she refused to think of that, lest what sanity remained to her collapse on the spot.

Summoning the _will_ to exert such effort was always the difficulty.

In this case, however, the onrushing fear sufficed. Anything but a return to the eternal armchair, anything, _anything_ …

* * *

And so it was that, when the boy awoke a week after his arrival, a much-sobered (and much-better-rested) Walburga arrived in his sickroom to inspect him. Of course, she had cast a Shield Charm before entering.

The now-familiar deformed face stared back at her, the mouth hanging slightly open; she distantly noted that the eyes, which had been thoroughly bloodshot, were now normal. Though they betrayed no intelligence whatsoever, that effect could be from the warping of the face rather than any true lack of brains; neither did the dimwitted gaping indicate anything, since the boy would have no choice but to breathe through his mouth, having what remained of his nostrils swollen shut by scarring. Still, he was doing nothing to shake initial impressions of idiocy.

“Greetings, boy.” She couldn’t even tell if he heard her. After a few moments, she cleared her throat and continued, “You have sought refuge at the home of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black, and it has been granted.” Of course, his next refuge would have been the grave. “Your wounds have been treated to the greatest possible extent that could be arranged on such short notice, and your needs have been satisfied to the extent that we could determine them. In exchange, you shall answer several questions of my choosing.” Provided that he could understand them. That seemed less likely by the moment. “First, what is your name?”

That actually roused the boy; he screwed up his face – Merlin, what a hideous sight – and began breathing heavily, like a mechanical contraption on the verge of catastrophic breakdown. “ _Hh…_ Haa… Hhhaaa…” Several similarly incomprehensible noises later, the will went out of him, and he weakly tossed his head from side to side. “’Unno,” he said at last. “Freaks don’ d’serve names.”

Knowing he had given Kreacher a nearly identical response, she gave that question up for lost; however, before she could ask the next, the boy raised his head again and squinted at her. “Not… _boy_ ,” he emphasized. “ _Freak_.”

Though appalled at the distinction, she forced her feelings back for the moment and assumed an expression of indifferent curiosity. “Freaks can’t be boys?”

“N…no,” he said, jerking his head back and forth in spastic motions. “Boys’re… goo’, upstan’ing folk.” Interesting – he evidently hadn’t known very many boys. “Freaks are freaks.”

“What is a freak, then?”

“A freak.”

Morgan le Fay help her, she had a juvenile philosopher on her hands.

Some part of her mind screeched that this was no time to jest, but she crushed the thought before it could fully form. If she let herself be overtaken by emotion now, she would have to acknowledge what had been done to this child, and she _could not bear_ seeing this mangled _ruin_ , the remains of a _little boy_ who could have been her Sirius or Regulus, a mere _child_ –

After clamping down on her internal screaming, she concluded that she would have to work more on her Occlumency. It had gone rather rusty.

Returning to the subject at hand, she resumed her pretense of emotionless curiosity. “Why are you a freak?”

The boy tensed, his whole body curling inward. “’Cause… ‘m a freak.”

At least his obtuseness was _deliberate_ this time. “Do not fear,” she said in a reserved, formal tone. “If I wanted to do you harm, I could have done so before now.” No response. Well, if a “freak” turned out to be something she had no way to restrain short of violence, it would be a lie to tell him she wouldn’t harm him, and she considered it indecent to lie to a child… but she could ask all the rhetorical questions in the world before resorting to that extremity. “Now, if I wanted to hurt freaks, since you _are_ a freak, I would have hurt you, now wouldn’t I?”

The boy uncurled slightly and looked up at her, suspicion twisting his damaged features. Well, good – it at least meant that his mind was working and his ears were listening. “Since I haven’t hurt you, surely that means you’ll be all right if you answer this next question?” she continued in a comforting, soothing voice. “Well, then, I must tell you that I don’t come from where you come from –” She _hoped_ he didn’t come from any place familiar to her, at least – “–and so I don’t quite know something. Is that all right?” He lowered his head to his chest and began to raise it, then abruptly froze and looked as though he already wanted to take back the aborted nod. _Too late now, boy_. “Now, tell me – What makes a freak a freak?”

His body went rigid, and she knew she had hit the right nerve; surreptitiously, she checked for any flaws in her Shield Charm. “If… y’ don’ know… whassa freak…” the boy said slowly, “how… can y’ say… y’ won’t hurt freaks?”

“I already told you,” she said sweetly. “Didn’t you hear?”

His eyes twitched and narrowed. “But y’ said y’ don’t know, an’ they didn’t know, an’ –” suddenly, he went dead silent.

“Who didn’t know?” she said, still in a gentle, curious voice. The boy, so still she would have thought him in rigor mortis if not for his ragged breathing, did not respond. “Come now, boy, tell me.” A thought occurred to her. “They can’t hurt you here.”

The boy loosened his muscles a little and said, in a feeble, hesitant voice, “Antunia an’ Un’l’ver’n.”

Antonia and – what? The name Unlverin didn’t sound like any language she knew – unless – Has the boy meant _Aunt_ Tunia? And… _Uncle_ … Ver –

“Aunt Tunia and Uncle Virrin?” she asked.

“Nuh, _Aunt Tunia_ an’ _Un_ –” The boy’s face scrunched up, and then slackened once more. “Un’l…” Slowly, he nodded. “Yeh. Aunt… Yeh. Yeh, yeh…”

It seemed he knew the rest of their names no better than he did his own. She suppressed a sign and tried a different tack. “Their surname, boy?” The boy’s face went blank. “Their _last name_.”

“Oh, _‘at_? Dur’ly.” Almost as soon as he said it, the boy screwed up his face. “Dur… Dur – Dur – _Dur_ ly? Neh…”

Well, it seemed that was a lost cause. Unfortunately, she’d learned one piece of information she hadn’t sought –

“Durly” was nowhere near the name of any Wizarding family. She thought less of the boy on the spot, but forced herself to be reasonable – only his aunt and uncle, he had said. In this perverse day and age, a witch might have – disgusting as the thought was – married a Muggle or Mudblood and taken his name. The boy might still be from Wizarding stock.

She mulled it over, then asked another question. “Your parents?”

“ _Freaksss._ ” After a moment, he added, “An’ dead freaks.”

Hm. Interesting, but not what she’d meant to learn. “Were they magical?”

The boy’s deformed features twisted in confusion. “Ma’ic? …Of cour’ not. No ‘uch thin’ as ma’ic. Un’l Ver’n… an’ Aunt Tunia… ‘aid so.” He gave a hard cough.

Her heart sank. Both Muggles, then. Or… hm. There was the possibility of a bitter –

“Was your aunt a Squib?”

“Wassa Squib?”

Wrong way to put it, then. Of course, if his aunt was indeed a Squib who denied the existence of magic, she would hardly admit to the title of Squib – That was obvious enough in retrospect, but it was hard enough to comprehend the idea of _not knowing about magic_. “Your aunt’s parents – What were they like?”

“Dead,” the boy said promptly. Well, she’d found something more literal than a House-Elf.

“ _Before_ they died.”

Now the boy looked uncomfortable again – which meant that she had asked the right question. “De’ent, goo’ folk,” he said slowly. “Like Aunt Tunia. Bu’ m’… m’ mother was… m’ mother was the freak.”

‘Decent, good folk like Aunt Tunia’ – she suspected, by now, that he meant ‘also Muggles’. His mother had been a Mudblood, then? Wonderful. A half-blood at _best_ , and she’d let it into her _house?_

Of course, he was still a – he was still the _wreckage of_ a child. That mattered more at the moment. But _still_ – “And your father?”

Mingled relief and shame – as closely as she could tell – crossed the boy’s face. “Freak-an’-goo’-for-nothin’,” he said in the same near-hiss he had used earlier. “Freak from a long line of freaksss an’ goo’-for-nothin’ from a long line of –”

She ignored the rest, having understood that to mean that his father had been pure, at least – if one of these “freaks”. “Good,” she said, much to the boy’s bewilderment. “Now…” She thought for a moment. “ _His_ name?”

“’Unno.”

“His last name?”

“P…” The boy made a hideous face. “’Unno, ‘unno, ‘unno!”

Bah. Could be anything from Peverell to Pigsnout, then.

She suppressed yet another sigh and thought of what to ask next. “How was your mother different from your aunt?” As the boy began to answer, she interrupted angrily, “I know she was a freak, but _what_ makes a freak different? How are they abnormal?”

“She…” The boy hesitated.

“I told you, I haven’t hurt you.”

The boy looked up at her, distrust clear beneath even his mangled features. “And they can’t hurt you,” she added pleasantly.

He began to relax, then looked sharply at her again. “But _you_ coul’ ‘urt me.”

Confound it! He hadn’t gone as stupid as she’d thought. “Answer the question,” she said somewhat less pleasantly.

“Then you’ll ‘urt me.”

She crushed the first response that came to mind – _If you don’t cease this tomfoolery, I might well_ – and then worked on cooling her temper a bit. The boy was damaged in the head as well as in the body. He also seemed to expect that anyone who knew his nature would continue the hideous tortures which had been inflicted upon him – Perhaps with good reason, considering that he, a _Wizarding_ child, no matter what his stock, had been so viciously treated by _Muggles_ –

Rage spiked through the seal of Occlumency, and pieces of information that had been shielded from emotions snapped into place.

Images of Muggle persecutions from ages past whirled through her mind – weeping children being all but torn apart by great black dogs, men and women being lit on fire again and again until the flame took, innocent herbalists being driven from their homes by deranged mobs of villagers – and matched themselves to the broken state of the boy before her.

_Has the Statute fallen?_

_Have the witch-hunts begun again?_

_Is this boy one amongst thousands?_

Nightmare after nightmare bloomed inside her head, and she felt her heart thumping like the hoof-beats of a unicorn in flight.

“Kreacher, go to Malfoy Manor – Ask them if – all is well, and – report back everything you hear,” she gasped, feeling the color drain from her face, and Kreacher, staring at her with alarm, immediately obeyed. Her head still whirling, she turned back to the boy.

Surely – surely _not?_ Would she not have known? Would she –

And the answer was, of course, that she would not, for she had been insensible of everything for years.

Merlin help her. Merlin help them all.

She could only hope that this boy had been an isolated case – but nonetheless, in him she saw the future, if the Muggles remained unchecked.

Dark save them all.

No, no, that was improper – for a moment, she’d sounded like some idiotic _Light_ witch! She permitted herself a hysterical laugh, having no one to see her weakness save a mad half-blood, and amended her plea. Dark _aid_ them to save themselves.

And let every simpering Muggle-lover burn.

But even that curse brought images of those strapped to the stakes, and she could take no pleasure in it.

“Boy,” she said gently, and found to her horror that she had to suppress tears. “Boy, I won’t hurt you. You’re amongst your own kind now. You need not be afraid.”

“Neh. ‘M a freak.”

“No, boy – You’re a wizard.”

There was a silence inside the room. Only the boy’s labored breathing and the rustling as he weakly shifted about on the sheets could be heard.

“ – a wha’?” he gasped, and then broke into another fit of coughing.

“A wizard, I said, and one of no small power.” Or he would have been. She was unsure – she had no idea if he could even be called _human_ now. For all that he seemed lucid at the moment, she remembered his screaming and mindless thrashing the last time he had been conscious.

“Buh… Un’l’ver’n sa’ there’s no such thin’ as _ma_ -”

“Your uncle _lied_ ,” she snarled, nearly blinded by a sudden flash of rage. “Your uncle and aunt are the lowest of filth, and – ”

“Nuh, nuh, they’re goo’, upstan’in – ”

“They are _filth_ , boy, and they ought never to have laid a hand upon you! By right, _you_ are their natural master – by _right_ , if anyone should have brutalized their own kin so, it should have been _you_ – _by right_ , you are as far above them as any human is above the beasts of the earth –”

And now, something shifted in the boy’s mind, and he recoiled in horror, his pupils dilating until they all but swallowed the irises – “You’re a _freak!_ ”

“I am a _witch_ , as you were a wizard, and upon the honor of the house of my fathers, I _swear I will see you avenged_ –”

But the boy only burst into one long scream, his body exploding into flames; as she shielded her eyes from the golden radiance, backing away and holding firm her spell of protection, she glimpsed his small frame thrashing and twisting within the fire, reminding her horribly of the blackened core of an ignited Howler.

And even before her mouth would form the words of spells to extinguish the flames, she knew he had lived through worse before.

Mindlessly, he screamed on and on and on, and nothing she could do would help him; the fire came from within, and it relit itself before she could even douse the embers. It would have done him no true good if she had – Now she knew the reason for the extensive damage to his internal organs, though she wished she did not.

She also knew that nothing could make a wizard’s magic turn upon him like _this_ unless it had been sorely pressed indeed. Backfiring spells were one matter. For a wizard’s raw magic to turn inwards and explode from him, as it did from the boy before her…

It was stark abomination, and the thought of Muggles forcing him into this state – twisting him and turning him until his very magic snapped, and taking gleeful pleasure in his madness and torment – sickened her even more than when she imagined the mutilation had been physical and mental alone. Her stomach roiling, she struggled to hold back the burn of tears, keeping herself sane only by repeating a hundred times over what she would do to the Muggles if she ever found them – what she would do to all Muggles who would do this to a child, driven to monstrosity by their animal hatred of their betters, what she would throw in the face of all Muggle-lovers and their simpering ideals of equality, what she would wreak upon anyone who stood in her way –

At last, the screams died down, and the flames with them; the boy’s thrashing stopped, and, after she finished putting out the golden fire that remained, he lay unmoving on the burnt husk of the couch, only faint shudders marking his continued life.

She lowered her shaking wand and approached the boy again, looking down at his freshly-blistering flesh with a mixture of revulsion and pity. He seemed unconscious, but continuously sobbed nonetheless; she could not tell whether the sounds stemmed from anguish or agony. It was – It was important to treat his new injuries as quickly as possible, she knew – but –

Without another thought, she dashed from the room, hurtled down the hallway, swung into the lavatory, dropped to her hands and knees beside the privy, and, for the first time since her pregnancies with Sirius and Regulus, began to throw up.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Trigger Warnings:** Child abuse and neglect, severe burn injuries, and mental illness.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Given out-of-book sources, this story is based around a severe error, since Walburga Black’s canonical death apparently took place in 1985, whereas, in this story, she is alive somewhere around late 1987-early 1988 (with it being implied that her canonical death would have taken place around the middle of 1988). I did not realize Rowling had ever stated anything about her date of death, save that she was long dead by 1995. Oops. (Was this stated in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at all?) As her survival to 1988 is _absolutely necessary_ for this story, I can’t change it without massively overhauling this story’s concept and future plot. However, as her survival to that point would not have done anything to the stories of the seven books – with Harry’s canonical first interaction with the Wizarding world coming in 1991 and canonical first contact with Grimmauld Place and Kreacher coming in 1995 – I don’t feel terribly guilty about my error.
> 
> As long as I’m disclaiming my dubious assumptions, I might as well continue – Kreacher claims that his Mistress went “mad with grief” after Regulus’s disappearance and, since she died in her early sixties without any mention of ill health, a Dragonpox epidemic, or a predisposition to early natural deaths in the Black family, I assume that she died of that grief.


End file.
